The Truth About Democracy

[Baruch]

Enjoy fellow ranters ;-)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/07/the-case-against-democracy

[AllPurposeAtheist]

A lot of very knowledgeable people are also very rotten to the core and the same can be said of the ignorant. As counter intuitive as it may sound ignorance seems to balance out the knowledgeable.
Some people I know who couldn't find the Mississippi river on a map are also very kind hearted and would give the shirts off their backs to total strangers.  The problem I see with the process as it sits is letting candidates lie with impunity and rarely if ever pay any consequences. Perhaps we need a system of automatic execution of candidates who lie more than say...5 times during their candidacy.. Yeah,  we'd have a lot of corpses, but at least we'd limit the lying. 

[Sal1981]

"The best of the worst" kind of rule and you have democracy.

It's a different kind of dictatorship. Majority dictatorship. I wouldn't mind small & limited experiments, if only in theory or as a sort of thought experiment, into other governing models and not limited to anarchy all the way to authoritarian rule.

Try technocracy for one, or direct democracy, or what about representative republic?

---

The problem with any governing body is that it usually attracts assholes and "leader" types who have regrettable traits, that's why I'm allured to technocracy: Only competent people are allowed to govern, maybe mix into the bunch a bit of democracy, where you get the people to vote and they're limited to voting for competent people ... yeah, I'd like that.

My point is (if any) that we need to try new shit out and not be bogged down into choosing the lesser of two evils. I want to choose the better of two goods.

[Atheon]

Democracy works best with a strong and well-constructed constitution guaranteeing equal and absolute rights for all, and puting limits on the powers of officials. One problem with the US constitution is that it is too vague on many issues. The Second Amendment is horribly written leading to two opposing interpretations, and even the first amendment doesn't specify church-state separation explicitly enough (leading many religious leaders to claim it isn't even in there).

The main problem with democracy is that half the voting population is of below-average intelligence.

I think Plato said that the only people who are qualified to be in power are those who do not wish to have power.

[Baruch]

"The best of the worst" kind of rule and you have democracy.

It's a different kind of dictatorship. Majority dictatorship. I wouldn't mind small & limited experiments, if only in theory or as a sort of thought experiment, into other governing models and not limited to anarchy all the way to authoritarian rule.

Try technocracy for one, or direct democracy, or what about representative republic?

---

The problem with any governing body is that it usually attracts assholes and "leader" types who have regrettable traits, that's why I'm allured to technocracy: Only competent people are allowed to govern, maybe mix into the bunch a bit of democracy, where you get the people to vote and they're limited to voting for competent people ... yeah, I'd like that.

My point is (if any) that we need to try new shit out and not be bogged down into choosing the lesser of two evils. I want to choose the better of two goods.

Technocracy ... Bill Gates invented the PC, Al Gore invented the Internet ... I call bullshit on the technology leadership.  Basically you end up with self promoting marketing types ... just like regular forms of government.

[SGOS]

I found that article interesting, as New Yorker articles sometimes are.  I saw it as a series of observations relating to democracy, but offering no real enlightenment or suggested course of action.  It reflected some of my own useless musings about our government.  I enjoyed seeing these musing articulated, as unhelpful as they are.

In the end, we get to vote, all of us, in theory anyway.  We get stupid votes, vengeful votes, enlightened votes, and a large percentage "abstaining."   And out of this frightful stew we get leadership.  And as one would expect, a frightful leadership that is of deplorable quality.  But the great thing about democracy is that we are all entitled to participate in our own failure as a nation, which some of us do with more enthusiasm than others.

[Atheon]

Technocracy ... Bill Gates invented the PC, Al Gore invented the Internet ... I call bullshit on the technology leadership.  Basically you end up with self promoting marketing types ... just like regular forms of government.

Just for the record, Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet.

[reasonist]

Ignorance is not a genetic trait but socially conditioned. It starts with parenting and the education system. DeMaistre had it right when he said 'every nation gets the government it deserves'. Yes, democracy is not the best system to govern a nation but we haven't found a better one yet. However, a direct democracy is preferable to a representative democracy in any case. But for that you need educated and well informed people (like in Switzerland).

[SGOS]

Ignorance is not a genetic trait but socially conditioned. It starts with parenting and the education system. DeMaistre had it right when he said 'every nation gets the government it deserves'. Yes, democracy is not the best system to govern a nation but we haven't found a better one yet. However, a direct democracy is preferable to a representative democracy in any case. But for that you need educated and well informed people (like in Switzerland).

I'm not sure direct democracy is better.  Representative democracy is a safeguard against the tyranny of the majority, since it represents all interests.  This is in theory, of course, since our representative democracy has been hijacked by the wealthy, but what the wealthy can do to representative democracy, it can also do to direct democracy (see DeMaistre above).

[reasonist]

True enough, money can always mess up things. Here is an excerpt from http://swiss-government-politics.all-about-switzerland.info/

While the federal system can be found in many other countries like the U.S.A., Germany, Austria etc., and separation of powers (government, parliament, courts) are common to all democracies (or at least should be), referendums are rare in most other countries. In Switzerland's long tradtion of Direct Democracy, frequent referendums do have a stabilizing influence on parliament and government.

    referendums will increase parties' willingness to compromise (otherwise a defeated party will call for a referendum)
    referendums favour big coalitions (shared power motivates compromise, exclusion from power motivates obstructive referendums)
    referendums increase stability (as extreme laws will be blocked by referendum, parties are less inclined to radical changes in lawmaking and voters are less inclined to call for fundamental changes in elections)
    The two chambers of parliament meet several times annually to sessions of several weeks and between them to preparing meetings of numerous commissions. Being member of parliament is not a full time job in Switzerland, contrary to most other countries today. This means, that Swiss members of parliament are closer to everyday life of their electorate.

This in effect cancels out corruption to a large degree. It's such a simple and low cost way to govern. And no war for 160 years, a stable economy including banking system, a low crime rate, 5 official languages peacefully co-existing and an education system second to none.
We should all take that as an example how to run a country.

[Baruch]

I found that article interesting, as New Yorker articles sometimes are.  I saw it as a series of observations relating to democracy, but offering no real enlightenment or suggested course of action.  It reflected some of my own useless musings about our government.  I enjoyed seeing these musing articulated, as unhelpful as they are.

In the end, we get to vote, all of us, in theory anyway.  We get stupid votes, vengeful votes, enlightened votes, and a large percentage "abstaining."   And out of this frightful stew we get leadership.  And as one would expect, a frightful leadership that is of deplorable quality.  But the great thing about democracy is that we are all entitled to participate in our own failure as a nation, which some of us do with more enthusiasm than others.

Said just like a 5th century BC Athenian.  Go Sparta!

[Baruch]

Ignorance is not a genetic trait but socially conditioned. It starts with parenting and the education system. DeMaistre had it right when he said 'every nation gets the government it deserves'. Yes, democracy is not the best system to govern a nation but we haven't found a better one yet. However, a direct democracy is preferable to a representative democracy in any case. But for that you need educated and well informed people (like in Switzerland).

And every male citizen in Switzerland, is part of the national guard, and has a government supplied military rifle at home.  The US is nothing like Switzerland.

[reasonist]

Absolutely! And yet the murder rate is a tiny fraction compared to the US. So what is the difference? The same mammals here and there. Cultural? That means it's learned not born. Can a society change? Or is the US a degenerated giant on it's way to political and economic oblivion?
I am wondering about that watching all the mud slinging of your election. No class anymore, just insults and lies, no substance, no respect. Is that the best a democracy can do for us anymore?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

You can make the case that only the" knowledgeable" should vote or at least be given more votes, but here's the catch..the knowledgeable also almost always have most of the money and they damned sure don't want that to change any time soon. It doesn't take into account how they get the money, it only says they have more money. Plenty of criminals have more money than the rest of us.
Direct democracy is too easy to manipulate and as pointed out already there's the problem of tyranny of the majority and referendums have their issues. Someone has to decide what the referendum is about and the people with the most money get to flood the airwaves with their point of view which often is a disaster in the making favoring the rich which is exactly what we have going on with the current system. The rich get to flood the airwaves and tell us all what a great job they're going to do to make sure that the rest of us are going to get our slice of their pie and sad to say NOBODY wants to give up even a crumb of their pie. 
Governments have a lot of moving parts and like most any machine one broken part can destroy all the other parts if the one broken part isn't fixed.
It seems like our governments are like a runaway train with several wheels always on the verge of sending us over the cliff. We can't fix any of the wheels while the train is rolling down the tracks and stopping the train isn't even an option and we can't exactly change the train into a horse and buggy despite half the people wanting to go back to horses and buggies..The train has too much momentum and the other half want to speed up the train and put new tracks in front of the train while it's rolling down the track..and nobody even wants to pay for any of it.

[reasonist]

You can make the case that only the" knowledgeable" should vote or at least be given more votes, but here's the catch..the knowledgeable also almost always have most of the money and they damned sure don't want that to change any time soon. It doesn't take into account how they get the money, it only says they have more money. Plenty of criminals have more money than the rest of us.
Direct democracy is too easy to manipulate and as pointed out already there's the problem of tyranny of the majority and referendums have their issues. Someone has to decide what the referendum is about and the people with the most money get to flood the airwaves with their point of view which often is a disaster in the making favoring the rich which is exactly what we have going on with the current system. The rich get to flood the airwaves and tell us all what a great job they're going to do to make sure that the rest of us are going to get our slice of their pie and sad to say NOBODY wants to give up even a crumb of their pie. 
Governments have a lot of moving parts and like most any machine one broken part can destroy all the other parts if the one broken part isn't fixed.
It seems like our governments are like a runaway train with several wheels always on the verge of sending us over the cliff. We can't fix any of the wheels while the train is rolling down the tracks and stopping the train isn't even an option and we can't exactly change the train into a horse and buggy despite half the people wanting to go back to horses and buggies..The train has too much momentum and the other half want to speed up the train and put new tracks in front of the train while it's rolling down the track..and nobody even wants to pay for any of it.

So what's the solution? Build new 'tracks'? Or new trains? You won't wipe out greed and profit, which drives any economy. I remember well when my parents took us to Romania for vacation. It was still communist ruled under Ceausescu. Every store, from ice cream parlors to drug stores closed as soon as they sold their quota. No incentive to sell more, off to the beach at noon. That's why communism never worked: no incentive, but corruption was rampant. Socialism, like in the Scandinavian countries works only if the citizens are prepared to pay for a very extensive and expensive social net with premium taxes.
Economists and philosophers have pondered that question for millennia but have not come up with a perfect system either. Not to sound repetitive but I still think Switzerland would be an example to strive for.